Till Death Do us Part?
by kaitokitty
Summary: A different spin on a commonly told story. Exploring death, friendship, and...not much else. Legolas is brought home with a fatal injury, it looks like the end for him, doesn't it?
1. Till death

Disclaimer: Legolas belongs to the Tolkien estate, as do all the characters, settings, and elves who show up in this story. I own none of it, nor do I claim to. (Well, I occasionally claim Legolas as my own, but then I get arrested and beaten to death. Then I don't do it anymore…)

Till Death Do Us Part?

They carried him into the palace with long faces and heavy hearts. There had been a skirmish on the western border, and they had been badly outnumbered. Many had been wounded, and a number of them had also died.

Their captain was close to being one of the number.

King Thranduil _ran _out of his chambers to greet them, and was already at the gate when they arrived. He had heard that the scouting party had returned, but when he heard that his son was returning, on a stretcher, his pace quickened dramatically.

It wasn't the first time Legolas had returned invalid, the first time, he had been awake and fully conscious, with a two broken legs. He had been complaining all the way home. But this time it was different, no complaints, no grumbling, no resistance; the prince was deathly still. The silence would have been relieving for his carriers, had there not been a large gash on his head and an arrow in his chest.

Thranduil strode up to the party with a stricken look on his face, "What happened?" He managed to croak out.

The leader of the party, Legolas's second in command, spoke first, "We were attacked by an army of orcs, we could have taken them, but they were too great in number… and they were well organized. 5 wounded… 3 dead."

Outside, the rain continued to pour.

---

Legolas lay in the healing rooms, hardly any different from the day before, except that he had considerably less blood now. His wounds had been cleaned, and the arrow was removed, but he remained motionless and deathly pale. King Thranduil his father sat by him for long periods of time, cursing the shadow and wondering why he had so many children. Legolas's siblings would peek in occasionally, inquiring on his condition and speaking to him in his comatose state. The king was currently sitting by Legolas, laying a hand on his arm and chatting to him about the weather.

A messenger showed his head at the door. "King Thranduil, there are visitors from Rivendell."

"Is Legolas really injured?"

"I bet it's just a broken nail or something"

"But I was so looking forward to hunting with him this time…"

Three cloaked figures on horses whispered to themselves, they were obviously from Rivendell, by their dress and the way they handled their horses. All whispers quieted, however, when King Thranduil showed up at the gate.

The three figures got off from their horses and bowed low as the king approached. Two of them revealed themselves to be Elladan and Elrohir, _the infamous spawn of Elrond _King Thranduil thought to himself. The third took off his hood to reveal Aragorn, son of Arathorn, future _hopefully_ king of Gondor. He was also known as Estel, Elrond's pet. The servants of the palace took their horses while Elladan greeted the king.

"King Thranduil, we are the sons of Lord Elrond, of your kin in the West. We had originally hoped to stay a few days, but that was before we heard of Prince Legolas's unfortunate injury. Is he well?" Elladan, the spokes-_elf_ said.

King Thranduil's ire grew inside of him, as well as his resentment for many of the Noldor. _While our _kin _near the Misty Mountains goes on _hunting parties, _my son lies inside dying because of how quickly the shadow is growing. _But Thranduil was a king, and is was his responsibility to behave like one, sohe swallowed his anger for the moment, and turned around.

"He is not well."

The three sons of Elrond looked at each other, then followed Thranduil.

---

Aragorn cringed. Being a healer in training, he should have been used to seeing blood and injured people, but elves weren't the type to be injured, sick, or dead, for that matter, especially in the safe haven of Imlandris. Here though, was one very unnatural looking elf. In other words, he looked dead. His eyes were closed, and he had lost quite a bit of weight. The bandaged wounds added to the gloominess of the picture. Aragorn felt his brothers next to him grow uncomfortable. They had seen orc wounds before, and they had experienced loss from it as well.

The king Thranduil was silent as the grave; he merely looked at his son with a heavy, angry stare. His anger was directed at many things, the Shadow, for one, the pesky Noldor, secondly, and finally his complete inability to prevent his children from the pain and sorrow of fighting the shadow, no matter how hard he tried.

The four stood in the room for a while, staring at Legolas, each thinking their own thoughts, then King Thranduil abruptly turned around and headed out the door. "Come. You have had a long journey, I have prepared rooms for you, though there will be no feasting tonight." He said with a grave voice.

_Who could feast, knowing their friend is lying in the healing rooms dying? _Aragorn thought.

As the twins unpacked and changed out of their wet clothing, Aragorn was wrapped up in thoughts of his own. He sat by the cold window, pressing his head against the glass, pondering death and what it meant to elves. Elrohir came over and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Come Estel, we must go have dinner."

Dinner, for the most part was uneventful. No words were exchanged between the king and his subjects, nor was much sound made except for the occasional clatter of spoons on plates. None of the palace servants dared talk to the king, and the three visitors from Imlandris felt the same. Everyone's mind was on the same thing that evening.

---

Late at night, when they were all supposed to be asleep, Aragorn woke up. It was unfair that an elf like Legolas should be laying there dying. It wasn't right that elves died at all, yet here was one bleeding his heart out, and one of his friends too. He sat up and snuck out to the healing rooms. Perhaps if he could just explain it to the guards…

Aragorn got to the healing rooms about half an hour later, after getting lost over and over, and having to re-explain to each guard each time that he was simply up trying to find his way to the kitchen, which was conveniently located right next to the healing rooms. Eventually, he got there. Surprisingly the guards stationed in front of the healing rooms simply shared a look and let him in. He had no time to ponder this development though, because he noticed that _apparently _a few other people had the same idea as he did.

The room was rather filled actually, Legolas's brothers, sisters, father, and even _confound it! _ Even the twins had made it down before he did. He grumbled a bit on the unfairness of the situation, then he found a place next to Legolas's bed and sat down.

---

Legolas Thranduillion was not feeling well. Ever since the encounter with the _blasted orcs_ he had been feeling downright terrible. He wandered about in the darkness of his mind, and struggled to make sense of why he could still think. The pain was quite terrible, he realized, but to his surprise, he didn't feel it. He didn't feel it like it was his own body, but more like, it was in a separate being. It was as if he had two bodies, one inside of the other.

He looked around him, there was only blackness. He wished he could open his eyes in the other, bigger body, but it was impossible right now, as they felt separated from each other. Outside of himself he could feel many other sources of heat and light. Some of them were brighter than the others. He knew in an abstract way what they must be, but he felt absolutely no motivation to think about it right now.

He tried calling out experimentally. "Hellooooooooooooooo" He said, finding that it echoed. "Is anyone there?" He tried again, to find the same result. "Your mother was a dwarf!" He said, this time simply to hear the echo. He realized that no one would respond to his calls, and sat down, weighing his options.

He was debating whether he should go to sleep or try to fly when suddenly the world became light again; really, really light. There was an opening in front of him, from which came the brightest light he had ever seen. It surpassed the beauty and warmth of the Earendil, _the Lady Galadriel would be jealous_ he thought. He looked around, to see if there was anything more interesting here to see, and after deciding that there wasn't, he stepped into the light.

In the room, Legolas's breathing became quick, and then it suddenly slowed down altogether. Everyone in the room noticed this change, and chaos erupted.

"Call the healer! HEALER!!!!" Thranduil yelled, not waiting for someone to respond to his command. Legolas's siblings crowded around him, they were anxious to keep him from leaving for the Halls of Mandos. Aragorn, amidst the flurry of movement, managed to keep a spot next to Legolas, using the excuse that he was a healer, and tried to revive Legolas from his sudden drop in heart activity. The twins and friends of Legolas were frustrated at the fact that they had been pushed to the outside of the circle without knowing it.

Legolas felt none of this.

"Legolas, awake! Awake! Mirkwood (ahem, Greenwood) needs you!" Aragorn shouted in his ear, and Thranduil held his son's head in his hands for dear life. Tears were streaming down everyone's cheeks.

"Don't go"

"Don't leave"

"Don't you dare…"

But Legolas heard none of this, and true to his stubborn personality, refused to listen. His breathed his last breath contentedly, then his body moved no more.

To be continued…

_Well, this isn't part of the birthday gift for ED, but the story was pretty fresh in my mind when I was writing it, so I had to get it down on…digital paper. Sorry to all you angst lovers, this is probably the heaviest chapter. Basically this is a different approach to the Legolas deathfic. It's pretty fun to write actually =P. Hum… anything else… oh yes, I didn't use any elvish (Sindarin) in this fic because, well, just imagine it's all in Elvish ok? Because I'm guessing elves don't think in Westron, and when they do, they don't throw bits of elvish in. No offense to the other fanfiction writers, I guess I'm sort of a purist =/. Sorry for the long delay with no updates ^ ^. I'll be updating this soon. Please review. Oh, and please tell me if the chapter is too short or something =P.  
_


	2. Messenger

Till Death Do Us Part?

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: See the first chapter, it's not like it expired or something =P

---

He stepped into the light and found that he was suddenly aware of the sound and people around him. He was sitting up on a bed, and people were crying. They took absolutely no notice of him while he got _off _of the bed, and Legolas found this strange.

They were crying over an elf who had sustained a nasty head wound, Legolas realized with some embarrassment that he had apparently been sitting on the elf when he got up. This was a very strange thing to realize. Taking a closer look at the fallen elf, he realized why he had been sitting on him in the first place.

_I see, this person must be me, leave it to my father to cause such a ruckus about all this… about…my death._

He realized again, with some surprise that he must be dead, otherwise, there was another elf that looked a lot like him lying on the bed, with the same friends and family too. Realizing that you are dead is a once in a lifetime experience, so to speak.

Legolas found a place next to Aragorn, who was busy pumping on his chest, trying to revive the dead elf. His_ other _chest, that is… _This is all very confusing to think about… _Legolas thought. He tried nudging Aragorn to see if his arm would go through him, but he found with some disappointment that there seemed to be some sort of force preventing contact between them. He also realized that his feet had a similar restriction, and that he was floating about an inch from the floor.

Being dead was quite an experience.

"I apologize for being late Prince. Ah well, it doesn't matter, it's not as if you could have done any harm in your current state."

Legolas's head whipped around, it was the first voice he had heard being directed at _him, _the conscious one. Behind him stood a tall, dark haired elf, he carried a longbow and wore a grey cloak. Legolas turned to face the elf completely, "Who might you be, a messenger of the dead then?"

The elf didn't take offense, but his lip quirked up just the tiniest bit. "You are as charming as I have heard, _Prince Legolas_, I am the hunter Beleg. Perhaps you have read of me in your history books."

"Beleg? As in Beleg Cuthalion? My goodness, forgive me for my disrespect, _Strongbow,_ I am simply a bit overwhelmed by this whole situation." Legolas said, to meet an elf from the first age was not an experience to be taken lightly, even if the elf was dead already. "So, Mr. Cuthalion, what brings you to my humble death bed today?" _Ha. I laugh at my own joke. _Legolas thought, dying gave a person a whole new field of humor.

"Well, seeing as you've died, Legolas, I have come to pick you up. Now if you would be so kind as to take my hand, we will be on our way."

_I had had so much to look forward to too… _Legolas thought wistfully. He turned around and looked at his family, his father and his brothers, then looking at the twins, Aragorn, and finally rested back on his own corpse. He turned slowly back to Beleg, "I don't want to die." He said.

"Well it's a bit late for that, young one. I'm sorry, but normally people don't get a second chance at this sort of thing."

Seeing the younger elf hesitate once more, he tried again "Oh come, the Halls of Mandos are quite spectacular, and I hear there is one waiting for you there as well." At this Legolas made a reaction, his eyes widened and he took a sharp intake of breath. He knew that Beleg was speaking of his mother. He was torn. He had not seen his mother in _ages_, but there was still hope that he would meet her again in the grey havens had he stayed. On the other hand, who knew how long it would be before he ever saw her again?

Legolas gave no reply.

Beleg would have been impatient at this point, except that elves didn't get impatient, especially not the elves who had been around since the first age and were not bound by time. Besides, it was normal for the newly dead to experience some emotional conflict. "Prince Legolas, we really should be going." Mandos however, was not so understanding, and Beleg knew this.

Finally Legolas spoke, "I'm sorry Beleg, I can't."

Beleg blinked. "You can't?" He scratched his head, he had specifically asked to be the messenger for Legolas, since he had wanted to meet him, but had not considered what he would do if Legolas declined. It was not as if he could force him to come along. He pondered for a while.

"Prince Legolas, perhaps you don't know this, but you do realize you can come back as long as time continues, do you not? It's not as if you have done anything especially _bad_ in this age…" Beleg said uncertainly. Legolas wavered… "You're certain of this…?" He asked.

"Of course. However, if you stay much longer, Prince, I'm afraid your Fea will dissolve, and you won't be able to do much of anything anymore."

Legolas started, "Well why did you not say so? Let us be off." He took Beleg's hand and they floated through time and space until they landed on a ship. "Next stop, Halls of Mandos."

"I certainly hope they don't bury me before I get back…" Legolas said. Beleg chuckled, though inside, he remembered that he had neglected to tell Legolas that most elves did not get to return until a few thousand years had passed.

_I certainly hope he isn't too angry when I tell him. _Beleg thought.

To be continued…

_I realize that there are some holes in this plot…I was originally going to let Legolas stay for a while and "revitalize", but I realized that I had neglected to do my research =( There are a lot of explanations Tolkien makes about elves and death, you can find them online, but I learned that elves have to go to Mandos before they can come alive again, in a new body similar to the old one. So I changed my story a bit. Kudos to you guys who know who Beleg and Turin are, I think their story is amazingly sad. Hum…please review, I feed off of it. Next chapter coming soon. -FC_


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